I don’t know how it was in the USSR itself, but if the wait for Trabants in East Germany was any indication, the wait time for cars was measured in years, not months (the joke about the girls being toddlers that Stefan made was only a *slight* exaggeration)

Sure: so small. So weak. So (in retrospect) doomed to failure. But back in those days we made the biggest petrol-guzzlingest automobiles that have ever existed to prove our superiority: look around. . .we are (regressing?); certainly getting smaller as an automotive culture

Don’t laugh too loud: 50 years from now; your best vehicle ever will be comedic fodder for the masses.

That being said; if you could roll today on first (or any) world streets in a pristine version of any one of these cars. . .you would be respected and admired by most if not all. Just because.

It’s like the snub nosed monkey of automotive history: ugly. unknown. not very adaptable.